


Where the Evening Splits in Half

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: "Thank you," Neil says. "You were amazing."Andrew has but a second to wonder why it sounds like a goodbye.





	Where the Evening Splits in Half

_This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard,_  
and make a wish.  
\- Richard Siken, Wishbone. 

Neil says ‘thank you’ the way people who are not Abram say goodbye. It gets Andrew suspicious, instantly wary, skin prickling. He almost asks about it: would have, the German already on his tongue to avoid most ears, but then they’re moving. Andrew holds unto his questions, keeps his eyes on Neil, walking ahead–

Hell breaks lose. There’s pushing and screaming and hands, too many hands, too many bodies push-tear-pulling. He tries not to lose track of Neil’s red hair but it’s impossible with the riot going on full and last Andrew is able to catch of Neil, one of the Security guards had his arm around Neil’s shoulders and was guiding him away.

It’s a blur after that. He fights the way he never completely fights against Renee (she’s still better than him, for one, and while she’s not his to protect, she’s not his enemy either) and the fucking elbow to the face wasn’t even intentional, just an idiot unaware of his surroundings and Andrew still makes sure to punch him hard enough that two teeth fall off. 

By the time it’s over, he’s at least two entries away from where the Foxes where. There’s already two ambulances, a paramedic helping Renee up from where Renee has her arm bandaged against her chest, Boyd’s wrecked hands with bloody knuckles, Nicky’s black eye, Aaron’s split lip, Kevin’s torn jersey. Wymack looks at him and curses, tells him to let a paramedic look at his eye, and Andrew ignores him because everyone is there except–

It’s Boyd who asks the question. “Where’s Neil?”

Andrew remembers, being eight years old, the foster’s family shitty mattress with the springs poking him and keeping him aware enough that he couldn’g just get to sleep, which was… good, mostly, except that he was always, constantly tired, from lack of sleep. 

But he remembers that, and he remembers one stormy night, the constant hiss of water falling and hitting against the windows, watching the lightning flashing and counting down the seconds until thunder would crack with enough force that the windows rattled against it. Remembers how that night, the lightning tore through the tree outside and for one big, eternal moment everything was white and black and soundless– and then the crack of thunder, and the crack of the tree, falling falling falling and crashing on top of the house, through the roof. 

The world turns soundless and covered in white-and-black-lightning as the Foxes that can start running around to look for Neil and Andrew has his phone out and the fast dial button for Neil’s phone number even as he’s already running, trying to recall where the Security guard went, trying to understand the look that Neil had given him before and why the words were wrong–-

A sports duffel, stepped on and covered in shoe prints and battered. On the mesh outside it, Neil’s cellphone, his own name flashing on the display.

The thunder crash of it goes all the way through Andrew’s chest and brain.


End file.
